Hulu: "UK is number one priority"

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 2 Jul 2009 at 11:50

US video-on-demand service Hulu has bolstered hopes it will soon arrive on these shores by claiming the UK is "its number one priority."

Hulu offers streaming access to shows such as House and Lost from major networks including Fox and NBC, as well as a number of smaller broadcasters. Unlike the publicly funded iPlayer, Hulu is ad-supported and has so far proved a massive hit in the US.

Rumours of the service being transplanted to the UK have been doing the rounds since launch, with reports last month claiming Hulu was in talks with BBC Worldwide regarding a content deal.

"The UK is very ready for a product like Hulu," noted Johannes Larcher, Hulu's international senior vice president at the Future of Broadcasting conference in London.

"We are talking to everyone. The UK is our number one priority in terms of international expansion. We are very interested in the UK. We hope in the very near future we will have some plans to reveal for the UK."

Larcher also noted that the demise of Project Kangaroo, the proposed joint venture between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, had "opened up some opportunities we would like to exploit".

The news comes as Joost investigates methods of spicing up its business model, as it struggles to fend off competition from other video services.